Forces of Change MPs during Tuesday's parliamentary session. (Credit: Hassan Ibrahim/Courtesy Lebanese Parliament)
Five months after May's parliamentary elections, the protest movement MPs have once again missed their opportunity to join the Parliament bureau—the body that sets the agenda for the legislative plenary sessions.
Above all, they failed to be included in the most significant parliamentary committees, whose members were re-elected by Parliament on Oct. 18.
While they succeeded in forcing Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri to elect members of the parliamentary committees instead of appointing them, according to the Lebanese-style agreement, the so-called protest movement MPs paid a price for this approach.
In addition to an electoral defeat, the 13 Forces of Change MPs lost one of their members: Michel Douaihy (MP for Zgharta), who broke away from the bloc after differences broke out during the parliamentary session.
“I am now completely outside the bloc of the 13 (Forces of) Change MPs in its current form,” Douaihy announced via Twitter after the session. “I am in favor of turning the bloc into a monthly consultative gathering ... with a full margin of freedom for all MPs on all issues.”
Douaihy continued: “What has happened since the May 31 session (when the new parliament met for the first time) and the experience of the bloc, in particular, should end out of respect for the Lebanese and the people who elected us, and out of respect for politics.”
He appeared to be implicitly critical of the approach of his colleagues during the election of Parliament Deputy Speaker, Elias Bou Saab.
The Forces of Change MPs voted blank in the first round, before joining the opposition parties and voting for the candidate Ghassan Skaff in the second round. In the end, Bou Saab, a deputy close to the Aounist camp, was elected.
L'Orient-Le Jour could not immediately reach Douaihy for comment.
The committees
On Tuesday, Parliament held a meeting to elect members to parliamentary committees — those responsible for examining bills and proposals before referring them to the legislature for adoption. Naturally, each is keenly interested in getting their members elected to these committees.
No significant changes were made to the committees' membership, with the exception of Finance and Budget. Forces of Change MP Mark Daou competed to increase his group's representation on this committee, but lost the battle, as did his Beirut colleague Ibrahim Mneimneh, who was replaced by Adnan Traboulsi (Ahbache, pro-Syrian).
Forces of Change MP Halimé Kaakour also ran for a seat on the Administration and Justice Committee but failed to be elected with only 18 votes.
Berri was clearly angered by the move of the Forces of Change MPs.
In an intervention during the session, Berri accused them of “breaking the agreement reached before the session by calling for a vote instead of agreeing on names beforehand.”
Reacting to this statement, Daou told L'Orient Today that before the session, his bloc was negotiating the names of MPs who would be appointed to the different committees.
"However, [Berri] only wanted to give us one MP in each committee while giving the other blocs their normal representation,” which the Forces of Change bloc refused, Daou explained.
Similarly, Kataeb leader Samy Gemayel criticized “the unacceptable prior agreements reached for the formation of committees.”
These agreements "between large groups exclude members who could work in committees related to their field of expertise," Gemayel said during the session, citing, as an example, Head of the Bar Association Melhem Khalaf, who failed to join the Justice Committee.
Parliament bureau
At the beginning of the session, Parliament set about electing — or rather, renewing — the five members of its bureau. Here too, Forces of Change suffered two defeats.
Daou, who ran for one of two secretary positions — reserved for a Druze and a Maronite candidate — lost the bid to MP Hadi Abou el-Hosn (Progressive Socialist Party, Mount Lebanon III), who won with 85 votes.
Daou secured only 30 votes.
This article was originally published in French in L'Orient-Le Jour. Translation by Sahar Ghoussoub.
